Dahn Yoga—Cult?

Around this time last year, my sister Monica came home from an excursion to Sedona, Arizona, really upset. A few months prior, she started going to this Dahn Yoga center on Central and Girard, right by the Radio Shack and the Walgreens. She went three times a week, and joined the Body & Brain club, a student group at UNM and tributary to Dahn Yoga.

Dahn sponsored her weeklong trip to Sedona, which was really creepy. She wasn’t allowed to take her cell phone. She got there and people were crying and hitting their fists on the floor. They made her bow to a statue every time she passed it. They wouldn’t let the “students” sleep. At the end, they talked about charging people thousands of dollars to become immersed in the next level of Dahn, and, Monica says, people were selling their houses and cars to do it.

Other frightening things happened, but not a lot of it can be substantiated. But I believe my sister 100 percent. Needless to say, I’m hardly impartial on this topic. When she got back, she filed a police report. She spoke with the Attorney General’s Office. She tried to figure out if she could file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.

The Tribune wrote a story about Dahn in March 2006. ABC flew my sister out to Phoenix a couple months ago to include her in their report on Dahn, which came out at the end of November. We just found the clip online.

Monica doesn’t really like being in the news media. She doesn’t really like talking about Dahn. But she’s doing it because she wants to get the word out about the place. I guess I’m trying to help do my part with this blog.

If you or anyone you know is involved in one of Albuquerque’s three Dahn Yoga centers, make sure they read these stories. Or at least do some Google news searching on Dahn Yoga. There are 180 centers across the country. There’s also been a lawsuit filed against Dahn on behalf of a woman who died in Sedona.